


smile like you mean it

by wondoll



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: M/M, SAD!!!!!!!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-21
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-06-30 11:09:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15750462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wondoll/pseuds/wondoll
Summary: Hyungwon was always coming and going.





	smile like you mean it

**Author's Note:**

> HI this is my first mx fic :3c i wrote it at 2am and it was never betad sorry suckers!!!  
> I wrote this while listening to smile like you mean it by the killers so please listen

 

Hyungwon was always coming and going.

 

One second he was there, and the next he was slipping out from under Hoseok’s fingers and into thin air. Hoseok thought he might really be going crazy.

 

It’d been months this time around since he’d seen Hyungwon. Hoseok was starting to think that maybe he might never be coming back this time, his fear increasing every time he entered an empty bedroom. It felt bigger, more barren, every time he would shuffle through the door and there was no pretty brunette curled up atop the sheets. It was exhausting him to his very core. He longed for even a second of Hyungwon’s body next to his.

 

Especially on days like today. 

 

Everything had been too much.  _ Everyone  _ had been too much. They had all worked themselves to tears, not being able to speak a word without the risk of snapping and jumping one another out of pure frustration. Hoseok didn’t blame them, though. It wasn’t their fault that so much needed preparation had fallen on a day where emotions were bound to run high.

 

He was just glad to be home. His bed might be cold and empty, but it was still a place he could curl up and  _ forget _ for awhile. He struggles with the lock to his front door for a moment before it comes swinging open. He drops his things in the middle of the floor, kicking the door closed behind him and trudging off to his bedroom. He was so tired, so prepared to drop face first into his comforter and fall asleep.

 

So much so that he thought it might be a trick of his sleep deprivation when he opened up his room to find Hyungwon sitting in the middle of the bed. The brunette smiles softly, lifting his hand to wave. It was so casual– as if he hadn’t been absent for the past two months. 

 

Hoseok almost wanted to be angry, but he could only feel relief swell up inside of him like a balloon until it popped. He rushes over to younger, dropping to his knees next to the bed and hugging his arms around his tiny waist. The tears are pouring from his eyes like a faucet, soaking right through Hyungwon’s tshirt. “Oh my god–“ Hoseok hiccups, “I can’t believe you’re here. I missed you so much. I thought–“

 

Hyungwon shushes him, carding his fingers through his hair delicately. “It’s okay,” his voice sounds so distant and foggy, and Hoseok feared it was because he was slowly forgetting the sound of it, “I’m here.”

 

Hyungwon pulls him into the bed by his wrist, and they struggle for a moment until they’re under the blankets, pressed right up against one another. Hoseok holds him, and just stares– studies his features and burning them into his mind even more, as if they weren’t already something so deeply engraved into his memory that the erosion of time could never take them away from him. He holds Hyungwon close and tight with one arm, his other hand preoccupied stroking over Hyungwon’s cheek with a feather light touch.

 

They say nothing, just hold each other until Hoseok can’t hold his own anymore. He regrets it the moment his eyes flutter shut, the toll that the day had taken on his body being too much to allow him to stay awake any longer. The last thing he feels is Hyungwon’s lips brush over his own before he’s unconscious.

 

When he wakes up, Hyungwon isn’t there.

 

                                   ——

 

“Under your eyes… they’re so dark. Are you sleeping enough?”

 

Hoseok smiles weakly as Changkyun reaches up to run a thumb under his eye slowly. “Probably not, but I’m okay.”

 

Hoseok knows that the other is not convinced by the pout he gives him in return, but he doesn’t say anything else on the matter. He’s grateful for that, grateful for Changkyun in general. He was very caring, very sweet with Hoseok. He’d started coming by to see him more often, to make sure he had a proper dinner and wasn’t holding himself up in his room in lonely despair. 

 

Hoseok knew that all his friends cared for him, but he appreciated the extra step that Changkyun was deciding to take. 

 

It couldn’t be easy for him. Hyungwon was his best friend, but he didn’t know if he’d seen him at all since the man had begun to fade in and out of Hoseok’s life. He didn’t want to ask, either, afraid of touching a nerve that could cause all the walls that Changkyun had managed to build up to come crumbling down into a mess that he wasn’t sure would be able to be repaired. 

 

But Hoseok knew that Hyungwon was a topic that hung heavy between the two of them every time Changkyun came knocking. 

 

The movie that was playing in the background had turned to static in Hoseok’s ears at the point as he sat, turned towards Changkyun, the younger’s legs draped across his lap. They were mumbling tiredly about mundane things. He wasn’t even sure when the boy’s hands ended up in his own, and he’d begun playing with his fingers affectionately. He just knew that this was the closest he could come to feeling content without Hyungwon in his arms. Changkyun had managed to work his way into his heart and cause a soft spot in the shape of his name to appear right across it.

 

When he fell asleep, Hoseok untangled himself from him very carefully before picking him up with ease and carrying him off to his room. He looked too peaceful for Hoseok to wake him up and make him go home. He draped the comforters over him, bid him a goodnight, and took refuge on the couch for the night.

 

He fell asleep wondering if he’d be okay like this.

 

                                  ——

 

The week went on again with no trace of Hyungwon, and Hoseok continued on with Changkyun’s visits and his friends’ support. 

 

Then he was there again, sitting in the middle of Hoseok’s living room floor with the same soft look on his face. Hoseok was as quick as usual to scoop him up and spin his lanky body around before dropping onto the sofa. Hyungwon wrapped his arms around his neck, settling into his lap with ease and familiarity. 

 

“I’m happy,” was the first thing he said, his hands going to work carding through Hoseok’s hair as carefully as usual.

 

“Why’s that?” Hoseok asks, reaching up to stop Hyungwon’s hand just so he can hold it in his own and place a kiss to its palm. It would never fail to put him at ease to know that no matter how long he went without him, Hyungwon felt like home and always fell perfectly into place in his life again.

 

“You and Changkyun have been getting closer,” he says, and Hoseok ignores the way his chest clenches, “I’m rooting for you.”

 

“Hyungwon– No, he and I… He’s my friend. I love y–“

 

Hyungwon puts his hand over Hoseok’s mouth, “Hoseok. I’m rooting for you.”

 

Tears burn at the back of Hoseok’s eyes until they free themselves and run down his cheeks. It hurt so much. His entire body felt  like someone had thrown him into a fire. Hyungwon moves his hand, the other coming up so he could hold Hoseok’s face and press their lips together.

 

When they part, Hoseok can feel how sticky his face has become from the salty tears, and how they’re gathering under his chin like a puddle. “Your lips are so cold,” he chokes.

 

Hyungwon grins sadly, “I know.”

 

                                  ——

 

After that, Changkyun starts showing up more. He manages to make Hoseok laugh, to brighten up the days where he fears he won’t be able to even get out of bed. 

 

But with his more frequent appearances, Hyungwon shows up more, too. Whenever the younger isn’t there, he is. However, he’s stopped kissing Hoseok. Stopped pressing right up into him. Stopped falling asleep in his arms. Every day he feels further and further away, and Hoseok is for sure he’s going crazy now. He needs Hyungwon so badly that it’s painful, but he also knows what Hyungwon is doing and that hurts ten times worse.

 

He may be showing up more often, but he’s also started disappearing a lot quicker. Hoseok is afraid to leave the room for anything because he knows when he returns, it’ll be to nothing. He doesn’t even want to blink when he has Hyungwon in his presence because that’s an opportunity for him to run away again.

 

It never matters, though, if he holds his gaze until his eyes are dry or never leaves the other’s side, he’s always there one minute and not the next.

 

He’s also gotten quieter, speaking less and less until one day, he doesn’t utter a single word. The last full sentence he can even recall Hyungwon saying to him was  _ “I’m rooting for you.”  _

 

He’s with him, and then suddenly he’s not.

 

Hoseok breaks down every time. 

 

                                  ——

 

Hoseok wakes up on January 15th feeling heavy. He doesn’t think he’ll be able to lift himself out of bed at all. He wonders if he’ll see Hyungwon today, or if he’ll just end up lying there, staring at the ceiling until he exhausts himself back to sleep with the overwhelming swarm of thoughts banging around his skull. 

 

He gets neither of these things. 

 

A full two hours has managed to pass when he hears the front door to his apartment clatter open. He doesn’t move, not caring who or what it is or what they’re here to do. He wouldn’t care if it was someone here to rob him. He can’t even manage to muster up the energy to fear it being someone here to kill him.

 

He doesn’t have to though, because in the seconds following, Kihyun’s familiar voice is ringing through the air.

 

“Hoseok,” he calls as a warning, and then peeks around his cracked bedroom door. When he sees the man in question lying on his side, having a staring contest with the white wall, he sighs and pushes his way inside fully. The door clicks shut behind him.

 

“Are you coming today?”

 

Hoseok rolls over so he can look at Kihyun with dark rimmed and shiny eyes. 

 

Kihyun frowns, “Hoseok,  _ please.  _ It’s been two years. You haven’t gone to see him once,” Kihyun’s tone softens when the tears begin to roll down Hoseok’s face and drip onto his sheets. “You have to come visit Hyungwon’s grave with us today. It’s time.”

 

                                   ——

 

Hoseok manages. He gets up, gets dressed, and goes with Kihyun right to the place he’d been avoiding all this time.

 

He sits in front of the grave and cries for hours on end. He cries and cries, until everyone else has to bid him goodbye with a hug because they can’t take it anymore. 

 

The only person who stays by his side until he has to tear himself away from this place is Changkyun. He holds him and cries with him until they both finally manage to walk away. They go back to Hoseok’s place, and drop onto the sofa tiredly. They say nothing, just continue to weakly sob with each other until they can’t anymore. That’s when Changkyun manages to croak out, “I’m really glad you finally went.”

 

  
  
  
  
  


Hyungwon never comes back after that.

 

**Author's Note:**

> twitter - @whorewon


End file.
